Well, what can I say? We live in a technology driven world. Everything I do now consists of using some form of technology that did not exist just several years ago.
First off, I cannot go a day without the use of my I-Pod. Everywhere I go and every time I work out, I need my I-Pod. What did I do a couple year ago? Geez, I must have been a caveman to work out or take a jog without music playing in my ear.
What about email? Can you imagine the times when each household had a single telephone to share amongst an entire family. Now not only are there cell phones everywhere, but I often just shoot my mother an email at her school or to my dad in the middle of work at his office.
This class has been really interesting in advancing my knowledge of technology. Some simple examples are PowerPoint presentations and blogs. Each PowerPoint presentation doesn't need to go from slide 1-2-3-4-5 and so on. By using all these new sorts of methods, we can make our presentation not only interactive but fun and interesting. Blogs are a great but easy use of new technology as well. Blogs can be used for teachers to reach out to their student's parents and other teachers.
The way technology is advancing at such an amazing rate, we can only hope as educators to harness even small pieces of it (blogs, email, PowerPoints, etc). We need to use these to help us communicate with others and become better educators in the future.
As I sat here today, a girl in my class took five minutes out of her day and absolutely blew my mind. There is a website called teachertube.com filled with all sorts of educational videos. Her example was power teaching, and I can only imagine the other ideas teachers have posted on this site. Would teachers have been able to share information and incorporate other strategies into their classroom twenty years ago? Not a chance.
Technology is everywhere, and we better hop on board or we'll get lost in the dust. This class has been one small key to helping me adjust to some of the new and useful technologies of the world today.
